


Hand in Hand

by stardropdream



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Character Study, Episode Related, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 18:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1397551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Porthos questioned his ability to fit into place & love, and the one time he understood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hand in Hand

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly character-introspection, and nothing overt in terms of shipping. Includes Flea/Porthos/Charon, Porthos/Alice, Porthos/Aramis, and Athos/Porthos/Aramis(/d'Artganan) all on some level. There's nothing really overt, so I didn't feel right tagging the pairings in the pairing tag.
> 
> (Edited the last part 4/11/14 briefly in places to make it a little less confusing.)

**I.**  
He is three – or four, probably five, very possibly six – he doesn’t remember anymore, and his mother is dead. It’s a strange feeling. He has always known his father would never be part of his life – and he never really had to mourn for him. But his mother is gone when the day before she was there, alive and breathing and whispering to him in a language he only half-understood, a strange mix of a distant land and French. Her smile is warm, her eyes are gentle, and he knows that he is safe when she is near, even when he also knows that the world is a dark and cruel place – and not meant for them. 

And then she is gone. And he is alone, and belongs nowhere. 

Her body is not yet cold and already he knows he will have to do whatever he can to survive, and he ties his leg up as a cripple and wanders outside the walls of the Court, searching for spare coin. He learns the tricks of the trade – sleight of hand, pickpocketing, card sharking. Stealing and running, until his lungs burn, until his feet bleed with blisters, not stopping until he is safe, crawling in the dark and in the dirt that so many say he belongs to – and he bares it all, because he has to survive, but his blood boils with hatred, with anger, with a longing. It becomes as simple and present as breathing – a deep, sweltering longing that presses against the inside of his skin, aching to get out, aching to be free. He learns to look as pathetic as possible, learns to steal from those who are truly pathetic when the rich do not spare him a second glance, when the rich sneer and spit at him, look at him down over his nose and think him inferior, and think him lesser. 

He goes home to the Court and it does not feel as home. It never was a home, really, just a place that he rested his feet, just the only place where his mother had any hope of survival before she succumbed to her illness. For Porthos, his home was never and never will be the Court. His home was with his mother, and now his home is gone forever – never to return again, and the ache is deep and festering and he does not know how to stomach it. He squashes it down, tells himself he’s strong, tells himself he is a fighter. And it works, for a little while. Even as the walls close in on him and he seeks solace with Charon and Flea – friends, yes, but the kind who steal from him just as much as he steals from them – and he knows he does not belong. Knows there is a life beyond the walls of the Court. Flea is kind, for a child, but is quick to kick him if he gets too mopey. Charon seems to understand, because his eyes are just as haunted, but Flea loves it in the Court. And he wishes he could love the Court, too. 

He thinks that they might love him – as much as they can. He wonders if he loves them, too, really. He doesn’t know anymore. And as the years tick away, he begins to wonder if he ever loved his mother, either, or if she was only a means for survival. With each passing day, he forgets bits and pieces of his life. Whatever words of her language he’d learned fades away to memory until even the sound of it leaves him speechless – unable to translate or understand. The days pass by and he forgets the exact sound of her voice, the shape of her laugh as it settled deep down in the pit of his heart. And he begins to doubt – wonders if, at the end of it, he only clung to her because he had to. He wonders if he even knows how to love. 

“Stop it with your head in the clouds,” Flea tells him one day and he nods absently, only half-listening, peering over the walls of the Court to the world beyond it, to the sprawling streets of Paris. 

And he wonders if it could be for him, too. 

He wishes he could belong. But every day he feels like something struggling to fit, something that just isn’t going to fit no matter what it is he does. He tries to lessen himself, tries to morph and warp so he can fit. But he never does. He wishes he could, but he knows he won’t. 

Knows that the true miracle will be getting out in the first place. 

 

**II.**  
The life outside the Court is just how it seems from the outside. He is met with outright anger, disrespect, disgust. Sometimes it is veiled, but mostly it is overt. And no man has worked as hard as he to join the ranks of soldiery, working his way towards becoming a musketeer, a life of brotherhood and loyalty, of honor and integrity. He sweats, fights, and nearly breaks everything he can in order to get that commission, his upbringing and his past be damned – a past that he speaks to no one. He is not a man of means, but he is a self-made gentleman, and he agonizes over himself in order to shape himself into a man worthy of respect, a man who can fit into this society beyond the constricting walls of the Court of Miracles. 

He learns to read. He learns to write. He adopts his new last name, _du Vallon_ , a man of integrity. Slowly, carefully, he scrapes away at the layers of dirt and disgust until he thinks he can be self-made, until he thinks that he has the intelligence and the means. He lends himself well to soldiery, and for once, for one fleeting moment – he feels as if he belongs.

But the thought is short-lived. A lower-ranking soldier, he has to remind himself, frequently, that his respect for authority is mandatory. He has to remind himself that the anger that brews down deep in his gut is something to unleash during battle and fighting, not on his fellow guards and soldiers who stare at him with contempt, who look at him as if it is _obvious_ that a man such of himself should be violent. A man of his _means._

And so he embraces it. He is a violent man. The violence becomes him, and it thrives in him. A man cannot survive without his violence – and he learns to cherish it, to wield violence itself as his weapon. He stops trying to blend in, stops trying to be one of the crowd. Learning new things gives him immense joy, but he stops shaping himself into that gentleman, because at the end of the day – they will not accept him. 

So he walks down the middle of the street and is present and does not hug to the sides of the walls as he did as a child, as he did as a young man searching to blend into the crowd. He owns himself. He is his own man. And if others must turn away their eyes, then so be it. He will not begrudge them their hate and their disgust. 

He will merely prove them wrong. 

The same is true once he joins the musketeers. Although many are accepting, still many watch him with curiosity and thinly veiled resentment. It doesn’t matter to Porthos now, after years of being hated for no reason beyond his upbringing, beyond his looks, beyond the violence that roots itself deep down inside of himself. He’s perfected the glare, he’s perfected the grace with which he can crack a man’s skull. He knows how to take care of himself. 

Tréville, at least, is a man of integrity and respect, and a man that Porthos is happy to follow. He accepts Porthos into the musketeers as he would any other soldier, and such a simple gesture is enough to let Porthos know that he has made the correct decision. 

Still, incorporating himself into the regiment is a slow process. The years of being alone have taught him to keep to himself, and he knows that he is intimidating. It’s how he likes it. And he keeps to himself, doing his daily tasks with conviction and precision. But it’s lonely, just as he’s always been lonely, and he again wonders if he has made the right decision. 

Again, he wonders if he’ll ever belong. 

Which is when he meets Athos and Aramis. He’s walking his way into the garrison, slowly but with precision, with no true direction either than to get his duties for the day and move out just as quickly. But it’s a warm spring day and he’s been with the musketeers for a few weeks, his uniform feeling out-of-place and yet perfect on his shoulder. And that’s when he looks across the yard and sees two men hunched over the little wooden table. Porthos glances their way, perhaps surprised to see them – if only because he usually makes a point to be one of the first men to the garrison in the mornings. One man is hunched into himself, looking half-asleep still even with his back to Porthos, hair dripping with water beneath the brim of his hat. The other man is wearing a hat with a ridiculous amount of feathers – at least Porthos thinks it seems a bit extravagant – and is shuffling a deck of cards. Porthos can’t help but watch him shuffle it, surprised at how slow he is at it despite having relatively nimble-looking fingers. 

The man catches his eye, and there’s laughter in his smile when he tips his hat in greeting. Porthos stares for a moment, and then glances over his shoulder to see if there is someone else behind him. There isn’t. And when he turns back, the man is laughing and it lights up his entire face in a way that’s kind and cheerful, not a laugh meant to degrade him. And it’s refreshing, really. He doesn’t know what to do, but then the man gestures for him to come closer, and the man whose back is to him turns to look at him and nods once. 

So Porthos shrugs and walks over, arms akimbo as he grips his belt tightly, ready to defend himself, ready for when the other shoe falls and their words are harsh and ignorant. 

Instead, the first man merely lifts an eyebrow, smiling still – and now that he’s closer, he can see how the smile weaves its way into every line on his face, crinkling like paper at the corners of his eyes, warm and light. 

“You look like a man who could possibly beat me at cards,” the man greets, and gestures for him to sit at the head of the table, shuffling and dealing out between the three of them. 

It is the first and only time that Aramis ever agrees to play cards with him – only because by the end of it, Porthos has managed to cheat him out of his entire purse. 

 

**III.**  
Porthos is not one to get maudlin, but he knows that without Aramis and Athos, he would be lost. It is not the first time that he has had friends – although he does not think of Charon and Flea often, when he does, it is out of fondness, even if there is the lingering sadness that neither would follow him. That Flea did not want to, and Charon said he couldn’t. Still, they were friends, even if it has been years since he’s seen them, even though it took years for him to even admit to Athos and Aramis where he came from. They never press to know, for all three of them have their own pasts and their own things to hide or to keep hidden. He’s grateful for that – and over the years of knowing them, he knows that he will be loyal to them until his dying day. 

But still, sometimes, he wonders – worries that he does not belong as well as he should. That he does not fit in, that he does not belong, that he is always to be the other. He is loyal to them until his breath leaves his lungs and he is no more. And he thinks that he loves them – they are his comrades, his brothers, and his friends. But still there is that doubt that grips his heart in a cold grasp – that he is not capable of love, that he does not know what love is. That where love should have been is only a dark, gaping hole. He does not remember what it is to love his mother, and so easily Flea and Charon were left behind, for his own doings. 

And still he fights, and still he is the anomaly in a city of different faces – as if he himself is anything less than the men around him. He does not doubt Aramis or Athos – or even d’Artagnan. Never. He will never doubt them, not for a single moment –

But he doubts himself, his ability to be the man he should be. So easily he left it all behind, to the point where he can no longer remember the way his mother looked, or the songs she used to sing him. She has faded away with time, to the point where she is hardly even a memory. Fle and Charon are distant memories, never to be revisited – and when he thinks on them, he wonders, too, if they ever loved him. And if he ever loved them, as he thought he once did. He fears a day when such a thing should happen with Athos and Aramis – when he spent his younger years so positive that he loved his mother. When he spent his adolescence believing that he could make himself fit in the Court, that he could shape himself the way he needed to be, in order to stay with Flea and Charon. But he left. And he never thought twice about going back. He just kept fighting, just kept leaving. 

It’s on the mission to escort Bonnaire to Paris that he considers again another place where he could fit in. Bonnaire speaks of a land beyond the sea, where he is free to do as he pleases, where he is able to have a life of luxury. A land where he does not need to fight to fit in, but rather a land where he can make his own decisions and his own destiny. 

He is not a man who covets such a life, but he is tempted – and he knows he is. He imagines waking up on his own time, bathing in the sun, and not having to answer to any man. He imagines a life of peace, of quiet, of solitude where he does not need to scrape away at himself in an attempt to fit, in a sad, sorry attempt to find a place where he can just be himself. 

And when the truth of Bonnaire’s schemes are made known, when the ache in his heart scrapes down deeper than any axe wound, he is disgusted with himself that, for one moment, he could even consider such a place as a land to belong—

That he should have happiness and peace at the expense of walking over the backs of others. 

His own disgust at himself does not fade even as the days pass, and he hates himself in these moments – to think that he could have even been tempted, that he could have even considered it. Even without knowing the truth, that he even considered it is enough to make the bile rise in his throat.

He tells Aramis about it, stretched out on his bed as Aramis checks over the stitching of his latest wound. It’s healing, but Aramis has always been a bit of a mother hen when it comes to the injuries he and Athos receive. 

“I thought I could have been happy there.” He sighs out, angry with himself. “Actually considered going with that bastard.” 

“You would have left?” Aramis asks quietly, and it is without judgment even as he stitches at the corners of the new scar, ignoring the way Porthos flinches – at the words and at the touch. 

He laughs out, humorless. “I always end up leaving, don’t I?” 

Aramis is silent, and the jab of his needle is a little harsher for half a moment, or at least it seems to Porthos, as he curses out in a soft hiss, shifting underneath him. Aramis plants his free hand at his back, keeping him pegged down to the bed as he moves to straddle him. 

“Calm yourself,” he commands, voice quiet. “You’ll make it worse than it has to be.” 

Porthos does not know how to be calm. Patience has never been his strongest of suits. But he attempts to keep still beneath Aramis as he works, hissing out quietly and flinching in pain, gritting his teeth. 

He does not know how to be calm. He does not know how to stay in one place – always searching for a spot that will finally, finally feel like home again. He closes his eyes, hit by a sudden wave of sadness, of all the people he’s known over the years that he, ultimately, left behind. 

“I don’t want to,” he says, finally. “Leave, I mean.”

“Then don’t,” Aramis says, as if it is simple – but Aramis, kind and gentle though he is, is the one who has been left behind so many times. 

Porthos sighs and rolls onto his back, looking up at Aramis. Aramis sighs, forlorn, as the wound leaves his sight, but he accepts it, shifting to accommodate Porthos’ movements and looking down at him in turn, fiddling with the needle and thread in his hands. 

He almost tells Aramis – of his fears. Of never fitting into a space he can call home. Of being unable to love the way he should. Of never, ever knowing just when to plant his feet and stay in one place. He fears his own loyalty sometimes, and hates that he does.

Instead, he just smiles up at Aramis. 

“You make it sound easy,” he says, quietly. 

Aramis smiles back, sympathetic. “Staying can be just as difficult as leaving. It’s just a matter of finding what it is you need – and want.” 

Porthos sighs, and wishes it could really be so easy. 

 

**IV.**  
Aramis kills Charon, and he watches as he dies – and wonders, again, if he’d ever truly loved him. If he’d ever truly loved Flea. The distance is already so far away, and he knows he is sad to know he’ll never again speak to Charon. This feels strange, truly, for he’s gone years without even thinking of him. 

He looks at the cold face below him, and thumbs the eyelids shut with a hand that’s surprisingly steady. He wonders if it’d be better if they were shaking – then, at least, he would know that he is upset rather than numbed, unable to differentiate between mourning and relief. Aramis looks more mournful than he feels, when he turns to look up at Aramis – but he also knows that Aramis does not regret, that he would kill any man if Porthos was in danger. 

He leaves the Court, for what will probably be the last time, and he feels cold even as he smiles at Flea, even as he kisses her as if no time has passed. She loves him – he’d never truly realized, or perhaps he’d forgotten over the slope of the years between them. But her world is not his own, and he will never belong. He thought for so many years that he might love Flea, or maybe Charon. He wonders if he did, or if it was just a hope to belong, a hope to be wanted and needed, a hope to not be left behind even as he took the steps to make the first move. To be the one to leave first, so that they could not leave him. 

He will never belong anywhere, but at Athos, Aramis, and d’Artagnan’s side. For however long he is able to stay. He will be loyal to them, he knows, until he no longer breathes. 

 

**V.**  
Often Porthos wonders if he even knows what love is. He thinks he loves Alice – as much as he can love a woman he’s only known for so long. He thinks he might love Alice, or grow to love her, or grow to love what she can give him – moments of peace, moments of belonging, moments where he doesn’t have to constantly fight, doesn’t need to constantly struggle. Where he can fit, seamlessly, without having to warp himself or warp around him. Where he fits, and is needed – where he is important and simply _Porthos_. Not a thief, not a disease, not a needless boy lost in the streets. Not a musketeer, not a soldier. Just a man. 

He thinks he could love Alice, if he does not already. And he thinks of the life that stretches out before him – long and peaceful and boring. And he knows it won’t be his, just as his life cannot be hers. While he can see a life that fits around him, fits into place around himself – he cannot see that he fits with Alice, where their edges jag and attempt to smooth over but never do. She sees too much violence, and he does not see enough.

And he never can outrun that violence. Even Alice sees him as something beyond just Porthos. He is a soldier. He is a violent man. 

He cannot live a life of peace. He feels that he is the ghost – something that moves on and never lingers, something that can never be, something that will never _fit._

 

**I.**  
There are times – and indeed he cannot live without these times, when he wishes for more peace. The fight is inside of him – because he cannot afford to be without it. The violence and the anger and the brutality live inside him because he would not survive in a world of cruelty – a world that is cruel, yes, but one that he fights for, one that he fights to live in. It isn’t enough to be free, to be his own man – but it is enough to have something to fight for: for honor, for France. His mother, kind and gentle as he remembers her – or thinks he remembers her – did not survive, and so many don’t with less adversity than he faces. To give up that fight isn’t ever a question for him. 

But the moments when he can, the moments when he lets himself think, for just a moment – of places far beyond Paris’ dusty city streets – of places that are peaceful, that are easier, that are freer. One part of him rejects that idea, and part of him will always long for that – just as every other part of him knows that, for him, it is impossible. To be loved. To be accepted – without question, without being seen as some perfection or some degradation. To be just a man. 

There is happiness in the musketeers – a family he chose for himself, a family for the first time in his entire life. And it makes his chest constrict with happiness at the mere thought of it – that he should have found this, all for himself. 

There are times, in those moments, when there is peace, when there is safety, when he thinks to himself that he can have this – these moments of peacefulness, where he does not constantly need to fight, does not constantly need to restrain. When he can be himself, and free, and without the feeling of a shadow dragging him back down, further and further. 

But these are fleeting moments, and the violence always calls him back. The violence is in him. The soldiering life. The life of a soldier, the life of a violent man, the life of a man who does not know peace and cannot know peace, not in the way that is expected of him. He is a man who would not know what to do with peace, should it find itself upon him. 

He cannot leave the soldiering life because to stop fighting is to stop living. He will fight for his entire existence, every day, in a world that cares little for him – but which he cares for entirely.


End file.
